I possibly haven’t mentioned it, but I’m a member of the Etsy Trashion Team. This is a collective of artists who reuse and repurpose materials ordinarily discarded as art, or even as further functional objects. For those of you cringing and worrying about how this works in perfumery – shhh. It’s OK. I don’t do anything scary or unsanitary. Right now I’m interpreting it as finding ways to use materials I’d ordinarily get rid of, like items sold as “natural” that were actually synthetics. But I’m also taking the trashion philosophy into my home life.
I have coveted the magnetic spice jars since I first read about them on Apartment Therapy - New York. While the rest of my apartment is roomy enough, my kitchen is roughly the size of a hall closet and it’s not really my favorite place to concoct as a result. This is a problem, since as a perfume/bath and body creatrix, a good portion of my time should be spent in the kitchen! However, I live in the land of the (narrowly) self-employed, so I have to think of and steal ingenious methods of making small spaces and limited resources really work for me.
One resource is a computer scientist boyfriend, who loathes getting rid of his computers. He always thinks he can use them for parts, and while sometimes he can, sometimes that computer really is dead weight. Since computers are in the top ten things that should NEVER be disposed of, and getting rid of a computer or two would also free up space in our home, he had a great idea:
He would remove the magnets from the defunct computers, and I could glue them onto the bottom of my spice jars.
I loved the idea- freeing up space in our shared office AND in the kitchen? Hooboy, yeahdaddyo!
The process was a bit more difficult, and my boyfriend did injure himself once or twice. He concluded that a Torx screwdriver would have been better, and so a couple hard drives still sit unopened until that is remedied.
Gluing took awhile – the magnet has to sit exactly right for the glue to take, and I actually had to pull the magnet off and reglue it when I found it wasn’t working physically with the refrigerator surface because of its shape.
In the end though, I got the spice jar up, and sticking pretty darn well. I only have two like this right now, but I’m going to hunt down that screwdriver – I can’t wait to open up that shelf.
